“We are Lashing Fred, 3 pieces-French punk act from Lyon.” With so many great bands coming from this amazing city in France I was so excited to click on the bandcamp link to check out what’s going on here. Unfortunately, Lashing Fred turned out to be a flat out generic pop-punk band that’s desperately throwing back to a time when pop-punk was still popping up from everywhere. I admit that somehow there’s a huge pop-punk revival in the last few years but Lashing Fred’s music is nothing but a clone of a clone of the most generic bands in the genre.
The production is quite nice and it seems the band has succeeded in getting the sound they want. The vocals on this EP sound as American as they could possibly get, which is an interesting thing for a French band. We don’t hear the typical French accent on this one. What’s annoying, however, is that there are no lyrics to the songs on their bandcamp page. I know, they are singing in English and this is not some growly hardcore metal, so it’s quite easy to get the wacky pop-punk message just from listening to the songs, but it’s still not an excuse for not uploading the lyrics to your bandcamp profile.
I wouldn’t recommend you listening to this 5-song EP unless you’re a 14 years old kid or someone whose guilty pleasure is still listening to Less Than Jake and NOFX to feel like a youngster again. I would rather shake my head and move my feet to Blink 182’s “Dude Ranch”.